St. John’s Beats Oklahoma to Reach Round of 16 for First Time

Eugeneia McPherson scored 21 points, Shenneika Smith added 18 and St. John’s advanced to the Round of 16 of the N.C.A.A. women’s tournament for the first time with a 74-70 win at Oklahoma on Tuesday night in the Fresno Region.

The third-seeded Red Storm (24-9) came up with 21 points off of Oklahoma’s 19 turnovers and were able to hold off a second-half charge to win in the second round for the first time in five tries. St. John’s will face No. 2 seed Duke on Saturday.

Nadirah McKenith, who hit a buzzer-beater in an opening-round win against Creighton, had 13 points and 7 assists, and Da’Shena Stevens chipped in 11 points for St. John’s.

Whitney Hand led No. 6 seed Oklahoma (21-13) with 16 points, 7 rebounds and 7 assists. The Sooners had a chance to tie on Aaryn Ellenberg’s 3-pointer from the top of the key with 37 seconds left, but the ball ticked off the right side of the rim and went out of bounds.

St. John’s surged ahead in the second half with a 10-0 run fueled by a pair of turnovers by the Oklahoma freshman point guard DaShawn Harden, who was in the game because starter Morgan Hook picked up her fourth foul just over four minutes after halftime.

Smith converted a fast-break layup off Harden’s first turnover and ended up getting a second-chance basket after missing on the second. Stevens’s jumper from the left side pushed the lead to 60-52 with 10 minutes 47 seconds remaining. Just over a minute later, she became the third Red Storm player called for her fourth foul — joining McPherson and the key reserve Mary Nwachukwu.

The Sooners rallied back with 9 of the next 11 points, pulling to 62-61 on Harden’s 3-pointer from the top of the key with 7:12 to go.

St. John’s Coach Kim Barnes Arico gambled by keeping McPherson and Nwachukwu in the game, and the Red Storm was able to hold on.

BAYLOR 76, FLORIDA 57Brittney Griner became the second woman to dunk in an N.C.A.A. tournament game, slamming one down with her right hand early in the second half of top-seeded Baylor’s win over ninth-seeded Florida in the Des Moines Region in Bowling Green, Ohio.

Griner, a 6-foot-8 junior, went nearly 12 minutes without scoring at the beginning of the game, but finished with 25 points, including the night’s highlight.

Candace Parker of Tennessee dunked twice in an N.C.A.A. tournament game in 2006 against Army. “I think my team got fired up a little bit more than me,” Griner said. “I got a little bit more fired up, I think, on one of the blocks I had. But it definitely felt good throwing it down.”

GA. TECH 76, GEORGETOWN 64 Sydney Wallace continued her scoring tear with 23 points, and Georgia Tech claimed its first berth in the regional semifinals of the women’s N.C.A.A. tournament by beating Georgetown in the second round of the Des Moines Region in Chapel Hill, N.C. Sasha Goodlett added 14 points and 11 rebounds for the Yellow Jackets (26-8).

Now comes their biggest challenge: A trip to Iowa to face Baylor on Saturday.

Sugar Rodgers had 14 points on 4-of-19 shooting from the field for the Hoyas (23-9).

PENN STATE 90, L.S.U. 80 Maggie Lucas scored 30 points and fourth-seeded Penn State moved on to the Round of 16 with a victory over No. 5 seed Louisiana State in Baton Rouge. Ariel Edwards scored 15 points and Mia Nickson had 14 points and 10 rebounds for the Lady Lions (26-6), who will play Connecticut in Kingston, R.I., on Sunday in the regional semifinals. LaSondra Barrett had 18 points and 12 rebounds for L.S.U. (23-11).

KANSAS 70, DELAWARE 64 Angel Goodrich scored 27 points to lead 11th-seeded Kansas past third-seeded Delaware and the nation’s leading scorer, Elena Delle Donne, in the Des Moines Region in Little Rock, Ark. The win moves the Jayhawks (21-12) to the second weekend of the tournament for the first time since 1998. Delle Donne finished with 34 points for the Blue Hens (31-2), who had their 21-game winning streak snapped.

DUKE 96, VANDERBILT 80 Haley Peters’s career-high 25 points led five Blue Devils in double figures, and Duke turned in its best shooting performance of the season in routing Vanderbilt in Nashville to advance to the Fresno Region semifinal. The second-seeded Blue Devils (26-5) trailed only once before a display that included nine straight baskets in the first half. Christina Foggie had 26 points for Vanderbilt (23-10).

A picture caption on Monday with an article about first-round games in the N.C.A.A. women’s basketball tournament carried an erroneous credit. The photograph of the game between Florida and Ohio State was by J. D. Pooley of The Associated Press; it was not a “pool photo by J. D. Ey.” The error was repeated in some editions on Wednesday in credits for pictures of Baylor’s Brittney Griner playing against Florida.

A version of this article appears in print on March 21, 2012, on page B12 of the New York edition with the headline: St. John’s Beats Oklahoma to Reach Round of 16 for First Time. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe